Related Articles

Melbourne Knights FC captain Ben Surey says the Club will be looking to participate in the return of the 2015 finals series, as he and his teammates return to pre-season training ahead of the National Premier Leagues season.

Surey, 32, also said that the Knights should never finish anywhere below fourth in the league, and was confident of achieving that with the vast number of players returning from significant injuries.

“We’ll be definitely aiming for finals,” Surey asserted.

“Top two or three if we can get the familiar faces in and sort out a decent squad and hopefully we’ll keep everyone fit and, as I’ve said before, there’ll be no excuses.

“Melbourne Knights should be in the top four anyway – we should always be aiming for the top two, three or four and obviously anything else is a bonus.”

The Englishman also said he was happy to re-sign with the Club ahead of the 2015 competition, which will be another year of Surey’s long-standing relationship with the Knights.

“Yeah, this will be my sixth season,” Surey confirmed.

“I’ve just turned 32 now so I wasn’t planning on going anywhere and as long as the Club wanted me to stay. I was really happy to re-sign again.

“Obviously the coaching staff hasn’t changed and we’ve kept the majority of the players as well, so even better.”

The midfielder says that he’s feeling fit ahead of the season opener against Avondale FC on February 20th, and said he’s had to work harder than previous pre-seasons.

“Yeah, I’m feeling good – obviously the older you get, you have to work harder in the summer to keep yourself fit!

“But you still have to find a balance between that and resting your joints and your niggles and that sort of thing, so I gave myself a few weeks off and then pretty much been working pretty hard, training hard over summer to get ready for pre-season and I feel good.

“Obviously we’ve gone back to training now, which is a good test of whether you’ve been doing enough really in the summer and yeah – I feel pretty good and the boys look pretty fit, so it’s good.”